Cuttack: Police have arrested a transgender on charges of duping a private hospital manager by posing as the Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Empowerment Ranendra Pratap Swain.
The accused has been identified as Soumya Ranjan Pradhan alias Lucky alias Sulagna, a resident of Kishore Nagar at Angul.
According to police sources, the hospital’s manager received a call on the landline number from a man, identifying himself as the personal assistant of the minister, on September 7. The caller said the matter was urgent and the minister wished to speak to her personally. When she called back from her personal mobile phone, the fraudster spoke to her posing as the minister and said a woman seer, Maa Sibani Durga, wanted to speak to the hospital owner for some personal work. He then handed over the phone to a woman who told the manager that she was organising a ‘hawan’ for which she needed 31 kg ghee and asked her to pay Rs 46,000 for the same as a goodwill gesture. Since the manager was busy in OPD document work, she quickly transferred Rs 46,500 from her account to the UPI ID provided by the woman, without verifying the authenticity of the call.
When she called back again on the same number, suspecting foul play, it was found switched off.
Following which, the owner of the hospital lodged a complaint with police, Cuttack DCP Pinak Mishra said.
The transgender was later apprehended and he admitted to having picked tricks of cyber crime in New Delhi and the minister’s style of talking after meeting him with his Kinnar group for some donation two years back.
The accused has duped more than 100 people in a similar fashion and siphoned off more than Rs 10 lakh from them, the sources added.
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